Don’t mess with
Jesus
If this wasn’t church, I would use
another word for ‘mess’. (I’ll give you a moment to imagine what it might be!)
In today’s gospel, some Sadducees (who
did not believe in the resurrection) come to mess with and try to trip us
Jesus.
You can always remember the name of
those Jewish officials who didn’t believe in the resurrection by remembering
that that’s ‘sad you see’. (I know I’ve told you that before, but I couldn’t
resist.)
They want to rope Jesus into not
declaring the resurrection with a pretty complicated story.
In Mosaic law, if a man dies and leaves
his wife but no children, one of the man’s brothers must marry her.
That was because women were essentially
non-persons—they needed a husband or a son to support them.
In the Sadducees’ tale, the man who had
died had seven brothers. Each of them, in turn, marry the widow and each of
them, in turn, dies, leaving her childless. Then she dies.
Either the woman or the brothers had
some pretty bad ‘karma’!
But in the next life, they ask Jesus,
who will the woman be married to?
But you shouldn’t ‘mess’ with Jesus.
He answers their inquiry without
hesitation.
Listen to what he says: “Those who
belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are
considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor or given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore because
they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”
And to add insult to injury, Jesus
himself quotes Moses.
“And the fact that the dead are raised,”
Jesus goes on, “Moses himself showed, in the story about the burning bush,
where he speaks to the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God
of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead but of the living; for to him all of
them are alive.”
It’s not in today’s gospel, but the next
two verses of Luke say: “Some of the teachers of the law responded, ‘Well said,
teacher.’ And no one dared to ask him any more questions.”
So, don’t you dare try to mess with or
trick or out-smart Jesus!
On a personal note—and one I hope you’ll
reflect on—I’m a bit of an agnostic when it comes to the Resurrection.
I must admit, I don’t know what I think
about that part of our system of belief and creed.
I have a priest friend who is on my zoom
meeting every Tuesday morning who is as confident as all get out about the
resurrection. Interestingly, he’s Jewish and converted to Christianity, but he
obviously isn’t a Sadducee.
In the hundred or more times I’ve sat
next to death beds, I’ve been assaulted by the patient’s family members about
the resurrection.
I usually halt and stumble about
verbally before saying, “I leave that up to God.”
And I do leave that up to God.
It is my hope to live a life ‘worthy’ of
resurrection, if that is what is in store for me.
I’m much more fascinated with ‘this side’
of death than with the ‘other side’.
Feel free to report me to the Bishop—wouldn’t
be the first time, for a variety of reasons—but I stand by what I think….I’ll
leave that up to God.
I won’t ask you what you believe about
the resurrection, but it is helpful to dwell on it and ponder it.
I’ll bring you to that moment of
pondering by remembering the last prayer of the burial service.
And these words are said by the priest,
facing the body or the urn:
“Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we
commend you servant. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own
fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of you own redeeming. Receive him/her
into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peach, and
into the glorious company of the saints of light. Amen
Ponder, my friends, ponder…..
